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If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them. – James 4:17

Dear Readers,

If you’ve followed me for any length of time on social media, Twitter most especially, than you know the journey I have been on. Maybe you are on the same one. Maybe you have appreciated some of the things I have RT’ed or articles I have shared. Or maybe you think I’ve gone off the rails. Maybe you think I’m speaking about things I have no business speaking about, because I’m a Christian novelist and it’s not my place. Maybe you think I’m being divisive. Maybe you think I’m being annoying.

I’m not sure where you fall on that spectrum. All I can tell you is what I know …

Isaiah 58:9 calls us to remove from our midst yokes of oppression wherever we find them.

Friends, God has been opening my eyes to a yoke of oppression in our midst and it would be sin if I did not do something about it.

This is why I speak. This is why I will continue to speak.

My heart burns within me. My heart breaks, too.

It breaks for so many in the black community, who are and have been living under a yoke of oppression.

It breaks for so many in the white community, who are and will roll their eyes at that statement. Especially Christians.

Oh Church, I can’t even explain to you the burden I feel in light of this reality.

The word God pressed upon my heart for 2017 was LISTEN.

And as I listen, there is a dissonance that disturbs me to my very soul.

So many black brothers and sisters in Christ, crying out until their voices are hoarse, while so many white brothers and sisters go about their day as if nothing at all is amiss. The disconnect is so loud and startling, it puts a chill in my bones.

Too many of us are living in ignorance. I fear too much of that ignorance is apathetic and willful. I fear too much of that ignorance is resentful and defensive. I fear too many ears are plugged, too many hearts are hardened. I fear too many identify the “noise” from the black community and willfully tune it out before they ever listen to the message. And I fear the consequences – both earthly and eternal.

With that said, I present to you a mash-up of voices I’ve been listening to, and this is just a small, small portion, with some quotes and links to specific articles and eye-opening threads on Twitter.

I pray you will listen, too. I pray your heart will be softened, and also pierced. I pray that this will be the beginning of an awakening for you and those around you, with ripples of justice that will spread into eternity.

“One of the greatest lies our country has embraced is the idea that white supremacy is a demon with swastikas as horns. The truth is, white supremacy looks like a pretty southern antebellum woman. It looks like a refined pastor calling a black man a liberal agitator for insisting that his life matters. White supremacy looks like a white washed seminary curriculum, and an American history class taught only from the perspective of those with power. Finally, white supremacy looks like well-meaning white people ignoring or dismissing black voices.”

I found this article from one of Kyle’s tweets and it absolutely lit a fire under me: “Paul embraced Roman privilege. He embraced it, & used it to serve church, justice, & advance gospel. Same should be done w/White Privilege.”

Kyle defines White Privilege in this article: “White Privilege, for the Christian, is a providential benefit of God that when properly stewarded allows for white Christians to stand uniquely and promote social justice and ethnic reconciliation in a way that others can’t within a prejudicial society.”

“Think of it this way, because I am black; the moment I mention race I am labeled divisive and an agitator. If I speak out against injustice, it is assumed that I have a chip on my shoulder that I need to get over. However, when someone who belongs to the majority culture speaks, one who has the privilege of no preconceived negative assumptions, they are listened to. Yes, they may still be rejected, but they have access to a hearing that I do not due to prejudicial presuppositions.”

This morning, one of Kyle’s tweets pointed me to …

Chanequa Walker-Barnes, theologian, psychologist, and author of Too Heavy a Yoke: Black Women and the Burden of Strength

So Let’s Talk About This “Many Sides” Thing: Please follow the link and scroll down to read the entire thread. It is a VERY important concept for white Christians to understand regarding the white Christian’s role (both individually, and collectively) in racial reconciliation.

Here is an aside from me (Katie), but not an analogy original to me: If a woman was being abused by her husband, and she was crying out about this abuse, we would deal directly with the abusive husband. We would not critique the way in which this woman was crying out. We would not tell her how she should feel. We would not dare suggest any rhetoric of “both sides”. Brothers and sisters, it is no different here, and yet SO MANY white Christians are doing this very thing when it comes to the abuse of ongoing, systemic racism in America. It absolutely is an abuse that needs to be reckoned with. If you don’t understand that, please educate yourself by listening to/reading any of the resources I list at the bottom of this post.

“More than 4,000 African Americans were lynched between 1877 and the rise of the civil rights movement in the early 1950s. Lynching was a brutal public tactic for maintaining white supremacy, frequently used with the tacit blessing of government authorities. It was a part of my heritage I had never been taught …”

“I was starting to wonder at all the untold history we would rather forget. Of the collective sins we long the most to disregard, America’s tragic history of lynching might top the list. But what struck me on our journey was this: Buried sins cannot be repented of.“

“White Christians will inevitably ask, ‘But what do we do?’ This question perpetuates the problem. People of color did not create white supremacy; white people did. To ask a racial minority how to solve a problem they didn’t create and one under which they suffer only adds to their burdens.” (please click and read entire article to see four important principles in battling white supremacy)

“Despite their insistence on justice, black Christians who speak boldly about racism and white supremacy often get muted or silenced. We can only infer that the sensitivities of white listeners matter more than the pain of black brothers and sisters.”

Friends, if this does not break your heart, if this does not show you the urgency of the problem and all that is at stake, perhaps the tweet below will …

Latasha Morrison, a leading voice in the fight against human trafficking and founder of Be The Bridge

“Following the #hashtag#emptythepews saddening. Reflecting on how many of my friends attended predominantly white churches two years ago… But majority have left because they’ve felt invisible and that comfort was more important for the Pastor.”

If you are hesitant to listen to these voices, may I lovingly but urgently push back with a why? If you are only willing to listen to white leaders in the church, if you are only willing to believe what’s being said by the vast majority of our black brothers and sisters as long as your white pastor gives it the stamp of approval … might this, in and of itself, point to a problem?

A funny thing happens when you write novels. As release day approaches, so too, does the anxiety. I’m not alone. In fact, most of my writer friends are familiar with this particular correlation.

Penning words that people in this broken world will read? It’s powerful stuff. Words hold the ability to shape and challenge and reinforce thought. And if I may borrow from Peter Parker’s uncle, with that power comes responsibility.

It’s a responsibility I feel profoundly.

So here’s where I get vulnerable.

Life After releases next week. I exhaled a giant sigh of relief when it received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly. Another Thank You Jesus when it showed up as one of RT Magazine’s Top Picks. Some early readers are saying its my best, most complex novel yet. All of which encourages me something fierce. Because I believe in this story. I believe in God’s ability to use it for His glory. I’m excited to get it into the hands of readers.

But recently, I was struck with an acute bout of anxiety.

All surrounding two lines of dialogue that occur in the book.

Two lines of dialogue most people will read right over and not think twice about. And that, right there, is what compels me most to write this post.

Over the past year or so, the Lord has been slowly and methodically removing the scales from my eyes. Scales that have made it easy to overlook the injustices so many people of color face in this country. God’s teaching me more and more each day, but I still have a long way to go. And sometimes, my ignorance smacks me across the face.

A la, these two lines.

They belong to Ina May Huett, an elderly black character living in Chicago. She speaks them as she’s flipping through one of her photo albums with the main character, Autumn Manning.

The first line comes after a photograph of her late husband and his family, standing in front of a clapboard house:

“Those were his brothers and sister. Smack-dab in the middle of the Great Depression. Black folk in America think it’s tough today, and I’m not discounting that. Lord know, there’s still plenty of injustice in this world, but, hoo-boy, it’s nothing like it was for a black family back then.”

The racial injustice of today is not a figment of black imagination. It is real. It is pervasive. And we, the Church–a body that is called to stand against all forms of injustice–should be the first to address it.

The second line comes after a photograph of Ina May and her husband standing beside Martin Luther King Jr. before they marched in Washington. Ina May tells Autumn about some encouragement she recently offered a white mother who was having a holy terror of a time managing her three small children (two white, one black) in the middle of a grocery store.

“And all I could think was, you should see us now, Dr. King. You should see us now.”

Of the two lines, this one jars me the most.

All of us want to feel comfortable. We don’t like to squirm. I think it’s a big reason why so many of us steer clear of hard, honest conversations about race. We want MLK’s I Have a Dream speech without his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, where he calls out the white moderate. Because indifference, beloved, is the greatest enemy of love. And oh, how the blood of indifference has stained our hands.

White history in America is ugly, y’all. Ugly with a capital U. And when it comes to history, we have two choices. Just two. We can either learn from it. Or we can repeat it.

If Martin Luther King saw us now, I’m not so sure he’d be very pleased.

We might not have lynchings anymore, but we still live in a society that de-values and de-humanizes black and brown bodies.

Jim Crow laws might be a thing of the past, but we still live in a segregated America. We are a product of the past and until very recently, red-lining was a thing. I hear so many people talking about how “those people” just want government handouts, ignorant of the fact that our white ancestors took government hand-outs that our black ancestors were denied, essentially creating the urban ghettos and in effect, the grossly unfair distribution of opportunity we see today.

And this is just the tippity-top of the racial iceberg.

When we choose to look away? When we choose comfort and warm fuzzies over the very real cries of our marginalized brothers and sisters, we are the problem. We become the white moderate MLK called out in that letter. We become Jeremiah 8:11 …

They have healed the wound of my people lightly,saying, ‘Peace, peace,’when there is no peace.

When I wrote that small snippet, my intention wasn’t to perpetuate white comfort. My intention wasn’t to add to this rose-colored mentality so many of us want to cling to. My intention came from a personal experience, wherein I was that struggling white mama, and a black woman became my Ina May.

But at the end of the day, the intention behind our words does not matter more than the impact our words have.

Hence, this post.

About how sometimes, we don’t recognize our own biases until later, when they are staring up at us from the pages of a novel. One that you happened to write.

One I hope you will read.

Perhaps when you get to that particular scene, it will serve as a reminder. A challenge. To pause and pray for the scales to fall. For eyes to see. This is how I’m combatting the anxiety. Through prayer. That God would bring good out of my mistake.

Essentially, this is my prayer for every book I write. That He would take my paltry offering of words, and draw hearts closer to Him.

May He do the same now.

If you’d like to learn more about the issues facing black Americans today, here are just a few of many, many invaluable resources:

Pass the Mic, the official podcast of RAAN (Reformed African American Network)

Truth’s Table, three black Christian women who love truth and seek it out wherever it leads

If you haven’t at least heard about it, then you are officially living in a cave. It’s a Netflix series original, and a revival of the beloved show that aired on the CW (or whatever it was called back then) from 2000 to 2007.

Rachel’s been watching Gilmore Girls from its inception. Susan didn’t watch it until recently, when she started hearing the buzz about a revival, and I’m smack dab in the middle. I didn’t watch it when it originally aired (I was too occupied by Dawson and Felicity), but I did jump on board before it ever reached Netflix, which means I own all seven seasons on DVD.

And now here we are, having watched the entirety of the revival, ready to dish about our thoughts and feelings.

If you haven’t watched yet, now is the time for you to exit and exit quickly, since the content below will most certainly contain spoilers.

Run, friend, run! Look away from the screen. It’ll burn your eyes.

Okay. If you’re still here, I’m assuming it’s safe to continue.

Let’s get on with it, shall we?

The conclusion ends with three (Amy Sherman-Palladino says four, which confuses me to no end) jaw-dropping words:

Mom, I’m pregnant.

Fade to black. Credits roll. My jaw has almost literally hit the ground.

Here is Susan’s take on this bombshell of an ending …

Without going into all the reasons why I am actually okay with what the writers decided to do, let me just say I’m one of those people who likes imagining what the future holds for characters I care about. I don’t always need an epilogue or a denouement or all the loose ends neatly tied up in a bow. For example, I have always been satisfied with how Gone With the Wind ended. Did Scarlett get Rhett back? Well, did she? The reader is invited – has always been invited – to imagine what Scarlett was able to accomplish in the days and months and years after the book ended. The reader gets to pick the result. The result she wants for Scarlett. The result she wants for herself.

I think the same is now and endlessly true for the Gilmore Girls, specifically Rory Gilmore. The writers could have paired her up at the end with Logan and fully infuriated the Team Jess fans, or with Jess and massively disappointed the Loganites. So they did neither. We viewers will choose. Do you want Rory to end up with Logan? She can. She can tell Logan she’s expecting his child (yes, it must be his then, and not the one-night-stand Wookie’s). He will break off his engagement to Odette and he and Rory will at last be together. If that’s you, just keep in mind that despite their obvious chemistry, Logan is a man who sleeps around on his fiancé.

If you want her to end up with Jess, she can decide she doesn’t want to know if the child is Logan’s or not and can confide in Jess, who, despite what he said to Luke, clearly still loves her. He can be the one to step in to take care of Rory and be the dad to the child she carries.

Or Rory can go it alone like her mother did. This is after all, why she went to her father to find out if he had any regrets that she was raised only by her mother.

So you have three options. Three doors. Which does Rory choose? Well, that’s up to us. And I’m not unhappy that it is.

Well, dear readers, what say you? Do you like the open-ended ending? What door would you have Rory walk through? Please let us know in the comments below!

I, personally, think it was a genius move. Because from now until Jesus returns, this will be the ongoing debate amongst Gilmore fans. Who does Rory end up with? Nobody gets to say they are unequivocally right (unless Amy comes out and gives us an answer, which would honestly make me quite sad).

As Susan says, we have three doors. Three possibilities.

I’ve developed my own theory about which door she chooses, but first, we must address the conundrum that is Rory.

As much as I loved the revival as a whole, I was utterly baffled by 32-year old Rory Gilmore. I never believed for a second that this is where we’d find her in her early thirties. The girl who has known what she wanted to do with her life since … forever? Driven, principled, type-A Rory? Yes, I know. She had her lost, aimless moments and her fair share of mistakes (some bigger than others, but that was when she was barely twenty.

I mean, come now. What has she even been doing for the past ten years? Writing that article for the New Yorker?

I don’t really get it, and I think the foreignness of this new Rory makes our postulating all the more tricky, since we’re not really sure who she is anymore.

With that said, I still have done my fair share of postulating.

I have no idea why the words, “Mom, I’m pregnant” left my mouth so hugely agape. The entirety of the revival’s theme was the cyclical nature of our lives. Rory falling pregnant outside of wedlock—faced with the same decision her mother faced all those years ago—is very much cyclical.

Still. Shock me, it did.

Originally (once I picked my jaw up off the floor), I thought, “So Logan is her Christopher.” And you know what? I was completely okay with that scenario. I’ve always been a big fan of Chris. I love the relationship he and Lorelei have. I love that no matter who Lorelei chooses, Christopher will always be a part of her life. If that was the role Logan was destined to fill, then okay. More than okay, actually. It seemed to really fit.

Until I woke up the next morning with a puzzle piece out of place.

My mind kept returning to that scene—the one between Rory and and her father.

Unlike Rachel, I had no inkling that Rory was pregnant at the time. All I knew was that I was delighted to finally see Christopher, and also, what aging potion has he been drinking?

As I stayed there in bed, that scene kept turning over in my thoughts.

I remember watching it, perplexed. Up until that moment, Rory never struck me as a girl with daddy-issues. She seemed content with Christopher’s role in her life. Sure, their relationship had its ups and its downs, but never once did I think that Rory was in want of more. Lorelei was her everything.

Then the scene unfolds. Christopher keeps insisting that his lack of involvement was the way it was meant to be. Lorelei and Rory were “in the cards”. And all the while, Rory looks wholly unconvinced.

I found it entirely jarring.

I remember thinking, “She doesn’t agree with him. Rory Gilmore doesn’t think her mom made the right choice.”

Without knowing yet that Rory wasn’t contemplating her own upbringing as much as she was her future child’s, the whole thing was a mind-scratcher. Why, at 32, is she all of a sudden doubting her mother’s decision?

Here is where my theory comes in:

It’s one thing for Lorelei to raise her child on her own. It’s another thing for Rory, who grew up without a father and seems to most definitely feel that absence, to choose that same path.

Yes, the revival was about coming full circle. But coming full circle doesn’t mean Rory must turn into a carbon copy of her mother. In fact, I think the idea of her choosing a different path from her mother carries more poignancy.

Rory can’t help but wonder, “What if?”

What if Lorelei wouldn’t have been so determined to do this thing on her own? Who knows! Maybe Rory wouldn’t be living at home at the age of 32, under the delusion that writing a book is somehow going to pay any of the bills.

I’m increasingly convinced that Rory is going to tell Logan. That Rory wants to tell Logan. Because love it or hate it, Rory loves Logan. And Logan (who is afraid to ask her for more, given her rejection at the end of S7, but is waiting for Rory to ask for more) would never leave her to raise a kid on her own.

Because despite popular theorizing, Logan is not Christopher.

In fact, Rachel Hauck has some interesting insight on this very thing. Keep in mind, she’s Team Logan (like myself). Take it away, Rach!

In order to have a fair discussion, we have to set aside all of our personal preferences. If you’re the bad-boy, leather wearing, motorcycle loving kind, forget that’s why you love Jess.

The same thing if you go for the bad boy, preppy, Mercedes driving, yacht stealing, rich boy.

Also, lay aside your moral prejudices. Both men have faults.

Who changed for Rory?

I have to give this to Logan. When Rory and Logan first hooked up, literally, he was honest with her. He didn’t want a girlfriend. But when Rory couldn’t take sharing him any longer, Logan stepped up and changed to be with her.

Jess ran away. His changes never came from being with Rory but from plain old growing up.

Who caused Rory to change?

Logan introduced Rory to a new world. The world of the upper class that was part of her DNA. While Lorelai fled the DAR, the country club and Friday night cocktail parties, Emily and Richard brought Rory in. It was in this season that brand new opportunities opened up for her.

Logan mentored and protected Rory through Yale. A life she chose. She pursued the Life and Death Brigade. She pursued Logan.

Logan caused Rory to see herself as something beyond a book geek and small town girl.

Jess, on the other hand, confronted Rory in her dorm room, demanding she choose Yale or him. He selfishly wanted her to run away, leaving everything behind that she’d worked so hard to achieve. He ignored her most of her dreams, only seeing what he wanted. He wasn’t willing to change, preferring to draw her into his mapless world.

He never understood or respected the country club aspect of Rory’s life.

Who encouraged Rory’s dreams?

Logan earns the highest points here. He was there for her that dreadful night the Yale Daily News almost didn’t go to press! He encouraged her as editor and as a writer. His nickname, Ace, spoke right to her passion and destiny. Logan’s family had the connections Rory wanted and needed—though she turned them down—to do what she loved. Logan understood the journalist in her.

Jess was not a part of Rory’s transformation. He never supported who she was becoming. I know Team Jess will say he encouraged her to write, even gave her the idea to write the Gilmore Girls book, but that’s just being a friend. I’ll give you he was that!

What did they have in common?

While Logan was not from a small town, he stood at the entrance to Rory’s move into a broader and higher class life. Logan and Rory had Yale, friends, and a similar social circle. His parents were friends with her grandparents.

Jess understood the Stars Hollow Rory. Sometimes. I recall him challenging her to get out of the backwards, hick place.

Other than the love of books, Jess and Rory never seemed to have much in common.

Whom did Rory say she loved?

Logan.

Who said he loved her back?

Logan.

Whom did Rory pursue when she had a chance?

Logan.

When she met Jess at his coffee shop/bookstore/artist hangout, Rory had a chance to choose Jess. But she did not accept his subtle invitation to be with him. She wanted Logan. She’s always wanted Logan.

Lorelei went from the country club to Stars Hollow to Luke. Rory went from Stars Hollow to the country club (Yale) to Logan.

Luke has this odd loyalty to his family even though they drive him crazy. Logan has the same odd loyalty.

Jess is Rory’s Christopher.

Christopher was selfish, abandoning Lorelai to raise Rory alone. Same with Jess. He was selfish, angry, and abandoned Rory when things didn’t go his way.

Christopher never really knew what he wanted to do or who he wanted to be. Same with Jess. Though both figured it out in the end.

Christopher hated the country club set. Jess hated the country club set.

Christopher understood Lorelai because they had a history. But he never knew how to take her where she wanted to go. Jess understood Rory wanted to spread her wings and fly, but not how to get her there.

Christopher was the man who would always be in and out of Lorelai’s life. Jess is that same man to Rory.

Well, howdy do! Rachel is most certainly not agreeing with popular opinion here. Tell us—what do you think? Who is Rory’s Christopher? Please share your thoughts in the comments!

Me? I happen to think Rachel’s theory makes a lot of sense. I mean, let us remember who rode in on a motorcycle, donning a leather jacket the first time we met him. Bad-boy, drifter Chris. Sounds a whole lot like a certain other bad boy drifter we know.

So there you have it, folks.

This is the door I’m choosing to walk through.

In my happy place, the Rory and Logan ship will finally set sail. And this ship will not sink. But even if it did, “You jump, I jump, Jack.” <3

And now that I have that out of my system, I’m dying to know …

Am I off here on the conundrum of Rory Gilmore?Did you find her 32-year old self believable?

Rachel, what do you think?

i

She was not believable. In fact, author great Susan May Warren and I were talking about Rory and felt she became younger as the show went on! She seemed more mature at 15 than at 32.

k

First, for a seasoned journalist her career should’ve been more established. After all she is THE Rory Gilmore. The girl who edited the Yale Daily New and used the word “hubris” correctly on a Ivy League panel.

l

She seemed lost. Unsure. Went into interviews without confidence, seemingly unprepared.

o

She was supposed to be so busy she never lived in her Brooklyn apartment yet at the end of the day, she had no jobs, lead or connections. The crazy celebrity book she was working on couldn’t have been her only opportunity. I never really understood that story line OR why she constantly traveled to London.

o

I feel like the writers were never really ready to let Rory grow up. I also didn’t buy she wanted to live “footloose and fancy free” at 32. Her personality likes stability, planning, knowing her future. I get throwing caution to the wind after college, but not “again” at 32.

o

I’d love more episodes seeing her raising her daughter and deciding to MARRY Logan. Not another Lorelai story but one that creates a cohesive family like Emily and Richard.

What’s your take, Susan?

This is a great question because it gets to the heart of why I think there might be a fourth door here. And that door is located in Christopher’s office. You are absolutely right, Katie. Rory doesn’t leave that office satisfied with the answer her father gives her. She is troubled when he hands her the coffee (of course, there is coffee) at the beginning of this scene and she’s still troubled when she leaves. His answer doesn’t give her the clarity she is desperate for and underscores why I am neither Team Jess or Team Logan or Team Rory solo. What I get out of this scene is that Rory clearly doesn’t believe she was meant to be raised without a father’s daily influence. She is wondering, as am I, if she would have made different choices if Christopher had had a more direct role in her life.

Rory began to unravel for me when at 19 she lost her virginity to a married man. She continued to unravel, such that thirteen years later Yale-educated Rory is now homeless, unemployed, direction-less, alone, and having an affair with a man engaged to be married to someone else. I barely recognize this Rory from the 15-year-old schoolgirl I met in Season One. And in Christopher’s office, she realizes she doesn’t recognize this woman either.

The fourth door could be that Rory will fall in love with the kind of man who will reconnect her to the woman she might have been if she’d had the fullness of a loving dad’s presence in her life. That man will be the father who raises this child with her. That man will make the 150 episodes and Rory’s depressing decline worth the watching. The people who love us best bring out the best in us. She has yet to meet the man who loves her best. But I believe it’s possible she will.

Now there’s an interesting thought! Heaven knows there’s plenty of them to be had. Make sure to tell us YOURS in the comments below!